The main value of youtube for many of us is the enormous video collection, which is impractical for anyone else to duplicate. Need to fix an old washing machine (I did, recently)? Type in the make and model and there’s an instructional vid. It’s unfortunate that Google has exclusive control over such a resource, but here we are.
Maybe a silly idea, but what about a P2P-based video hosting! Hear me out:
We have more computing power and bandwith in our homes than ever before. We know that sharing data and files via P2P works, is resiliant against attacks, and scales really well.
No server costs mean that people could support creators by seeding the content to other peers. One cool thing about that would be seeing how you are making a difference, in real time.
The difficult part is not the software or even the hosting. It’s more about the network effects and the ability to let users monetize uploads, which in turn creates vast potential for abuse and fraud, which in turn has to be addressed by burning stupendous resources. At a certain point people stop wanting exposure or “making a difference” for their own sake, and instead want to get paid in genuine coin of the realm.
Absolutely, people still need money. So P2P would not solve that bit, but at least the donations can go directly towards content creation rather than having to cover server costs as well.
PeerTube started as being P2P based, hence the name. :) However, due to technical challenges associated with it, they dropped support for P2P streaming in 2023 (see the link for details).
The main value of youtube for many of us is the enormous video collection, which is impractical for anyone else to duplicate. Need to fix an old washing machine (I did, recently)? Type in the make and model and there’s an instructional vid. It’s unfortunate that Google has exclusive control over such a resource, but here we are.
I think it’s running it at a loss too. But there’s no reason these platforms couldn’t be publicly owned.
It was, but monetization has been so aggressively everywhere that I think they finally are in the black at least since 2018.
I had no idea. You’re right. It was a $15B business in 2019. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019
Makes the ads seem even more obscene now that I know that.
I wonder what would happen if Google decided to “turn off” YouTube.
Maybe a silly idea, but what about a P2P-based video hosting! Hear me out:
We have more computing power and bandwith in our homes than ever before. We know that sharing data and files via P2P works, is resiliant against attacks, and scales really well.
No server costs mean that people could support creators by seeding the content to other peers. One cool thing about that would be seeing how you are making a difference, in real time.
The difficult part is not the software or even the hosting. It’s more about the network effects and the ability to let users monetize uploads, which in turn creates vast potential for abuse and fraud, which in turn has to be addressed by burning stupendous resources. At a certain point people stop wanting exposure or “making a difference” for their own sake, and instead want to get paid in genuine coin of the realm.
Absolutely, people still need money. So P2P would not solve that bit, but at least the donations can go directly towards content creation rather than having to cover server costs as well.
PeerTube started as being P2P based, hence the name. :) However, due to technical challenges associated with it, they dropped support for P2P streaming in 2023 (see the link for details).